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OFFEE derives its name from the city of Kaffa, Abyssinia, 

in which country, it is believed, the coffee tree originated. 

Its botanical name is Coffea arabica, as Arabia was the first 

country into which it was extensively introduced. If left to 

grow in its natural state, a coffee plant may grow into a shrub 14 to 

18 feet high, having then a long and slender trunk without branches 




COFFEE TREE AND BERRIES. 

The coffee tree, with its dark-red berries contrasted with the green foliage, is a beautiful growth. 
When in its natural state it often reaches a height of 14 or 18 feet, but under cultivation is not per- 
mitted to grow above 6 or 8 feet high. Its roots are thin, but numerous, and reach deep into the 
earth, a central root reaching straight down to a depth proportionate to the height of the tree. 

on the lower part. The plant has thin and numerous roots, which 
grow deep in the earth, having one central root going straight down, 
the length of which depends upon the height attained by the plant. 
When cultivated, however, the shrub is generally not allowed to grow 
beyond 6 feet in poor sandy soil and 8 in rich soil. This restriction is 
imposed on the coffee tree because, when the plant grows over that 
height, the difficulties for cultivating it increase. 

: 



855 



;56 



INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 






The leaves are at first of a bright green color, turning into the olive 
shade when they are full grown. Healthy coffee trees produce, in the 
spring, in the axilla of each leaf, from 12 to 16 buds, which soon 
bloom and have an exquisite perfume. The beauty of a coffee planta- 
tion is fleeting, as, on a plantation, one may see the trees in full 
blossom and two days later the ground may be covered with white 
flowers. Two or three efflorescences occur before the buds become com- 
pletely ripe. The flowers become dark and wither in two or three 
days. Dry weather is better for the plants during the first days, but 
when the buds are becoming consistent the water washes the petals 
(pimd discloses numerous pistils or germs of fruits on which all depends. 




PICKING COFFEE IN BRAZIL. 

The coffee harvest begins, as a rule, in May, and the largest crops are harvested by September. To 
preserve the health of the pickers, the work is done in dry weather as far as possible. The picking 
is by hand, the berries being deposited in wicker baskets, which, when filled, are conveyed to the 
mill. In modern plantations the berries are conveyed to the curing house by running water 
through galvanized-iron spouting. 

Experience teaches that, when the pistils look fresh and have whit- 
ish tips, it may be expected that the crop will be approximately the 
same as the number of flowers, but when a black spot is noticed the 
planter may be sure that he has lost his crop. This happens generally 
when the plant is not sufficiently strong or is due to an inopportune 
rainfall. 

It is when the leaves fall that there issue from the small stems 
groups of seeds at first yellow and coarse to the touch. When they 
ripen they begin to redden until they become the coffee berries. The 
bean in its natural state is convex on the one side and flat on the 



COFFEE. 



857 



other. There are two seeds in the ripe berry, side by side, each one 
covered by a delicate silver-colored skin ; then comes a cartilaginous 
membrane of rough consistence, and afterwards the pulp, which is 
mucilaginous, saccharine, and sometimes agglutinated, the outer part 
being covered by the outer skin. 

The color and size of the berries differ very much, as is demon- 
strated in a table published by Arnold, which represents the number 
of grains that can be contained in a small measure capable of holding 
50 grams of water. It contains 187 of the dark, fine Java coffee, 203 
of Costa Rica, 207 of the good Guatemalan, 210 of the good Caracas, 
213 of the Santos, 217 of Mocha, 236 of Rio, 248 of Manila, 313 of 
western Africa. In other words, Java beans are the largest, as 




COFFEE DRYING IN COSTA RICA. 

Coffee drying is accomplished either by the dry or the wet process. The latter is used only with 
improved and complicated machinery, which frees the beans from all extraneous matter, after 
which they are dried in the sun or by artificial heat. The dry method consists in exposing- to the 
sun's rays layers of berries 5 or 6 inches deep on platforms or terraced floors called barbeques. This 
process continues for three weeks, the berries being protected from the rain and dew during this 
period. When finally cured the husks are separated from the seeds by means of a bulling mill. 

fewer of them enter into the measure, and the scale diminishes until 
it reaches western Africa coffee, of which 313 beans fill the same 
measure that will contain 187 of Java. 

The same author maintains that coffee becomes better as it ages. 
Java coffee of superior quality is not exported until six or seven years 
after it has been picked. As it becomes drier, when it is roasted, it 
produces a richer cream. 

The coffee bean is prepared by separating it from the pulp which 
surrounds it by means of water and fermentation. The hard shell is 
removed by mechanical processes. Thus is produced the coffee bean 
which is sold in the market. 



858 INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 

A mass of fanciful romance, tradition, and legend envelops the 
earliest historical accounts of coffee, but it seems safe to accept the 
statement of Arabian writers that a pious Mohammedan, who had 
found the beverage made from the bean useful in warding off drowsi- 
ness during prayers, introduced it into the city of Yemen, southern 
Arabia, in 875 A: D. ; that is, about a thousand years ago. From 
Arabia it spread through Asia Minor and northern Africa, but ap- 
pears not to have reached Europe, via Constantinople, before the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century. The first coffeehouse was opened 
in London in 1652. Coffee was introduced into Paris about the 




BENEFICIO DE CAFE, COSTA RICA. 

The illustration shows in detail the drying beds in use on modern plantations. In the evening the 
layers of coffee are raked into piles, which are covered over for protection from the dew. 

same time, or, perhaps, a little later. Coffee drinking in both Eng- 
land and France became extremely popular and well-nigh universal. 
The practice of coffee drinking, both in Mohammedan and Chris- 
tian countries, encountered for a long time the bitter disfavor and 
opposition of sovereigns and potentates — in Mohammedan lands be- 
cause the custom kept people away from religious services in the 
mosques,, and in Christian states because coffee houses were regarded 
as rendezvous for sedition and the hatching of conspiracies against 
governments. Chronic coffee drinkers, therefore, were punished 
severely with flogging and imprisonment ; but these drastic measures 
having no appreciable effect, heavy taxes were imposed upon coffee, 
which proved to be a profitable source of revenue. 



COFFEE. 



859 



The first coffee shrubs grown in Europe were carefully raised and 
studied in conservatories by French and Dutch scientists in Paris and 
Amsterdam. The energetic Dutch were quick to perceive the economic 
value and possibilities of coffee, and in 1G90 the first tree was trans- 
ported from Mocha, Arabia, to Batavia, Java, by one Nicholas Wit- 
sen, of Amsterdam. This tree nourished in its new home, and, as the 
climate, geographical position, and soil of Java and the adjoining 
Dutch Indies proved favorable to coffee raising, the plant multiplied 
with wonderful rapidity in those far-off oriental possessions of Hol- 
land, and the foundation was thus laid for one of the principal sources 
of her commercial prosperity. 

Komantic stories are attached to the introduction of coffee into the 
New World. It is, for example, asserted that De Clieux, a Norman 




COFFEE PRODUCTION 

OF 1Q07 
ACCORDING TO LEADING COUNTRIES 

(in kilograms) 



•BRAZIL- yiNEZUEIA-GUATIMflLfl- COLOMBIA- WICAT?ACUA- HAITI • G03TA RICA-POTCHLIND1K-BK1T15H INDIA -ECUADOR- 



gentleman and naval lieutenant, sailed in 1723 from France for Mar- 
tinique, in the West Indies, and took with him a coffee tree intrusted 
to his care by a physician. The voyage was long and tempestuous, 
but De Clieux shared his scanty portion of drinking water with the 
plant, which, though weak, upon its arrival in Martinique recovered 
under De Clieux's watchful care. From this tree, it is said, came all 
the coffee shrubs in the island, which more than supplied all the coffee 
required for the consumption of the whole of France. 

According to Rossignon, the ancestor of all the coffee trees in Brazil 
was grown in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, but other authorities 
assert that a Portuguese named Joio Alberto Castello Branco 
planted in 1760, in Rio de Janeiro, a coffee bush originally brought 
from Goa. 



860 INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 

Coffee plantations were started by the French in Reunion, Mau- 
ritius, and Madagascar in the eighteenth century, and by the Span- 
iards in Santo Domingo, Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines abouf 
the middle of the same century. For some time the "West Indies took 
the lead in coffee production, from which they have strangely de- 
clined. Java eventually outstripped them, to be in turn outstripped 
by Brazil, which at present supplies more than three-fourths of the 
world's coffee production. 

The geographical distribution of coffee lies within a subtropical 
and tropical zone comprised between 25° north and 25° south of the 
equator, and between longitude 160° west and longitude 150° east of 
Greenwich. The extreme northern and southern limits of this zone 
are thus about 3,500 miles apart, and the distance between the far- 




SORTING COFFEE IN A MILL, COSTA RICA. 

When the crop has been harvested and cured, many laborers are employed in selecting' the good 
from the defective beans, the former to be exported and the latter to be sold for domestic con- 
sumption. 

thest western and eastern limits, over 21,000 miles. Coffee grows, 
either in its wild or cultivated state, in Mexico, Central America, the 
West Indies, northern South America, Brazil, northern Africa, Ara- 
bia, various portions of the west and east coasts of Africa, the Ha- 
waiian Islands, British and Dutch India, and the Philippines. Its 
successful production is, however, confined to comparatively con- 
tracted areas, as, for example, in Brazil, where coffee plantations are 
mainly confined to the four Atlantic States of Sao Paulo, Minas 
Geraes, Rio de Janeiro, and Espiritu Santo, whose combined areas 
constitute only about one-eighth of the vast domain of Brazil. 

The principal coffee-producing countries of the world, in the order 
of their importance, are Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, 
Nicaragua, Haiti, Costa Rico, Dutch East Indies, and British India. 
The chief coffee importing and consuming countries are the United 



862 



INTERNATIONAL BUEEAU OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 



States, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Hol- 
land, and the United Kingdom. The last-named country is remark- 
able for the great quantities of coffee which it reexports to all parts of 
the world, reexporting, for instance, in 1904 two-thirds of the 118,- 
186,000 pounds of coffee which it had imported in that year. 

Statistics show that the total quantity of coffee delivered in the 
United States from all sources last year, amounted to 929,754,540 
pounds, of which there were imported from Brazil 753,840,648 pounds, 
or somewhat over 81 per cent, which was about the same proportion 
as during 1906-7. The deliveries in Europe have remained stationary 



ESTIMATE OF COFFEE 
OF THE 



T^O F< 



I 1,500,000 BAGS 

OR 

690.000.000 KILOGRAMS 



1,500,000 BAGS 

OR 

90,000,000 KILOGRAMS 



950,000 BAGS 

OR 

57,000,000 KILOGWMS 




PRODUCTION 

WORLD 

1908 



G97,00O BAGS 
OR 

A\,aZO,000 KILOGRAMS 



350,000 BAGS 
Of? 

£1,000,000 KILOGRAMS 



50,000 BAGS 
OR 

3,000,000 KILOGRAMS 



for the past two years, or about 1,386,000,000 pounds annually. Thus, 
the total consumption for Europe and America is approximately 
2,310,000,000 pounds annually. 

With the ever-increasing consumption of coffee in the world, a be- 
wildering variety of beans has been evolved, but, among the most 
popular and widely used are the Java, Sumatra, Mocha, Rio, Mara- 
caibo, and La Guaira. There are many substitutes for, and adul- 
terations of, coffee, and some authorities assert that in the United 
States, for example, very little true Java and Mocha coffee is sold, 
owing to the skill with which many planters and dealers have been 
able to approximate in color, appearance, and aroma the Dutch In- 



COFFEE. 863 

dian and the Arabian varieties in the preparation, for the world's 
consumption, of their own indigenous coffees. 

The successful cultivation of the coffee bush requires an expert 
knowledge which can be gained only by experience and by experiment. 
The plant flourishes best in well- watered and drained regions, in a 
hot, moist climate, at considerable elevation, in a rich soil. Other 
conditions being favorable, it can withstand occasional light frosts. 
The rainfall should be T5 to 150 inches per annum, well distributed 
over all the seasons. Irrigation, when required, as in certain por- 
tions of Arabia and Mexico, must be intermittent, so as to avoid a 
water-soaked soil. The soil must be porous, as an impervious stratum 
within reach of the taproot (which is 30 inches long) is fatal, for no 
sooner does the taproot reach it than the tree falls off and dies. 

The question of shade is a highly important factor in establishing 
a coffee plantation, more shade for the young coffee plants being re- 




A MODERN PLANT FOR THE CLEANING AND POLISHING OF COFFEE. 

An establishment of this nature is found on every large plantation in coffee-producing countries. 
Here the coffee bean, which has previously been stripped of its pulpy covering and dried, has all 
other extraneous matter removed, and is cleaned and polished. 

quired in hot lowlands near the coast than in sheltered elevated re- 
gions between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above sea level. When the eleva- 
tion is as high as 5,000 feet, as in certain parts of Mexico, Central 
America, Venezuela, and Brazil, the plants require artificial shelter 
against cold winds from the north. 

The kind of shade employed should receive careful attention and 
study. Such shrubs as bananas, with their long broad leaves, should 
be avoided for shade purposes, as experience teaches that they al- 
ternately expose the coffee plants to too much shade or to too much 
scorching by the sun. 

The young coffee plants are obtained in three ways: (1) By using 
the seedlings that grow up spontaneously, (2) by sowing the seeds 
in nurseries and afterwards transplanting, (3) by sowing them in 
the places they are to occupy finally. 



864 



INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 



The first method, as traditionally practiced in Porto Rico, is thor- 
oughly vicious. The plants steadily deteriorate, and yield poorer 
and poorer results with each year's successive natural sowing*. The 
second method of sowing in nurseries and afterwards transplanting 
is employed, for the sake of economy and expedition, in regions 
where the rainfall is not sufficient throughout the year to keep the 
young plants alive. This method requires the utmost care in the 
selection of the best seeds. The care exercised by the German planters 



COFFEE 
WORLDS PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 

On kilograms) 




£i 



NOTE. 
1968 IS ONL.YAJJ 
ESTIMATE 



in Latin- American coffee regions, in this and all other details relating 
to coffee cultivation, accounts for their exceptional success in obtain- 
ing the highest profitable results. The third method of planting the 
seeds directly in the open field at once avoids the labor of transplant- 
ing, the risk of injury to the roots, and the setback which every plant 
experiences in being transferred to a new site, but is practicable only 
where the rainfall is suffiicent at all seasons of the year for the plant 
to thrive. 



COFFEE. 



865 



The dressing and preparation of the coffee beans for the world's 
markets require special expertness and long experience. The berries 
should not be gathered until they have assumed a dark red color, 
verging on brown. Before it can be sold, the coffee has to be freed 
from the various envelopes that surround the two beans. This is 
done in two ways — the dry and the wet. The former is the old way, 
used in Arabia and America, where the planters are too poor to use 
improved machinery. It involves a complicated process of exposing 
the berries in layers, 5 or 6 inches deep, to the sun's rays, for about 




LOADING COFFEE AT SANTOS, BRAZIL. 

Santos is the seaport of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the largest coffee-exporting center in the 
world. For the year ending June 30, 1908, the shipments of this article reached the enormous total 
of 8,456,000 bags of 132 pounds each, or a total of 1,116,192,000 pounds. The illustration shows the 
method of transferring the coffee from the warehouse to the wharf, each being stamped witn tne 
name of the shipper as the stevedore files past the entrance. 

three weeks, after which the husks can be removed from the beans in 
a mill. The dry method is really the best for producing finely flav- 
ored coffee, but is inapplicable when applied to large quantities in 
tropical countries. 

The wet way, or "West India preparation," requires expensive 
machinery, composed of vats filled with water, and a variety of ap- 
paratus for removing the lighter and worthless berries, loosening the 
pulp from the serviceable ones, cleaning the beans, and drying them 
thoroughly in the sun. Roasting the beans is delayed as long as pos- 



866 INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 

sible, as imroasted coffee is said to improve with age. The process 
of roasting is a delicate and difficult operation, as thirty seconds too 
much or too little may mean a spoiled roast. To preserve their aroma, 
roasted coffee beans should be very carefully packed. 

It is not easy to grasp the tremendous production and consumption 
of coffee throughout the world. In 1904, according to the special 
monograph on " The World's Production and Consumption of 
Coffee," prepared by the Bureau of Statistics, United States Depart- 
ment of Commerce and Labor, the world consumed 2,299,000,000 
pounds. The production of coffee was, for the same year, 3,065,932,000 
pounds. As stated elsewhere in this article, Brazil leads by producing 
more than three- fourths of the world's entire coffee production. The 
United States, on the other hand, has, for many years, been the chief 
coffee consumer, her consumption in 1907 being 985,000,000 pounds, 
or, virtually one-half of the total for the entire world. She is fol- 
lowed by Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and Holland, 
while the United Kingdom, whose penchant is tea drinking, con- 
sumes annually only about 30,000,000 pounds of coffee. 

Coffee drinking throughout the world appears to be increasing at 
such a tremendous rate annually that the most expert authorities 
estimate that, by 1950, the world's visible supply of stocks of coffee 
left over from one year to another, will have disappeared entirely — 
in other words, that Brazil and other coffee-producing countries will 
be wholly unable fully to supply the world's annual demand. This, 
however, takes out of account the possibility that a sufficient area of 
new regions will be devoted to coffee cultivation, to overcome the 
deficiency. That this is quite possible is shown by the fact that the 
Philippine Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Hawaii 
are excellently adapted for coffee culture, which, in those regions, 
was a fairly prosperous industry in the middle of the 18th century. 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 950 000 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




020 950 000 



